Harold Gittins

About

Harold Gittins was born in Manchester in 1895, the son of a Post Office worker. He became apprenticed to a Manchester process engraver, but in the First World War served in the Manchester Regiment, before joining the South Lancashire Regiment as a Second Lieutenant, then transferring to the Royal Flying Corps.

Gittins went to France in July 1916, where he was said to have survived being shot down by Manfred von Richthofen, although he does not appear in his official list of victories. Gittins subsequently attended Richthofen’s funeral in France in April 1918.

After the war Gittins became a cartoonist with the London Evening News, drawing sports cartoons in the style of Tom Webster. During the Second World War he drew pocket cartoons for the paper, and also worked for the magazine Blighty.

Harold Gittins died in Willesden, London, in 1959.

Mark Bryant Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Cartoonists and Caricaturists